Sad to say, but P-C is me. I read the series fresh out of undergrad.

Oh, see, I read them when I was in elementary school or junior high.

Getting all the way through Tolkien was a chore.

I loved TLotR books, but I must admit that I missed out a great chunk of Return of the King. Because, see, I was nine, and I'd ploughed my way through the first two honking big books, and I'd been in floods of tears at the tragic awfulness of the Sam'n'Frodo plotline at the end of The Two Towers, and then as soon as you start Book 3 it's all Aragorn and the grownups. (Yes, I know that Frodo is old. Shut up. He was my height.) So pretty damn quick I was all "Okay, screw you guys - what is happening to my boys????"

...I don't think this was to do with naked tortured Frodo and devoted Sam. Um. I'm fairly sure it was just empathy. Um.

Anyway, yes - this meant that when the movies came out and I reread the books, I had the weird experience of having some lines carved into my heart, and other chunks of text (most of the Eowyn stuff) be brand spanking new. Odd. But lovely.

Poor Susan. I always felt bad for her, being punished for reaching puberty and developing an interest in lipstick and boys.

Well, not to re-open another patented Buffista neverending argument, but...ah, what the hell. I always felt like she was punished less for the lipstick and boys than for the lipstick and boys to the exclusion of anything else, including her past as a Queen of Narnia, and actively denying their past -- airily dismissing everyone's memories as "those games we used to play when we were kids."

IIRC, the reality of childhood experiences was a *huge* thing for Lewis; his mother's death when he was six was a trauma that hung over him well into adulthood, and he had a wretched school experience with an abusive and clinically insane teacher that he never told his father about because he felt absolutely certain he wouldn't be believed. He saw dismissing the raw truth of children's experiences as exaggerations or outright fantasies as a massive betrayal. I know it's dangerous to read too much meta into anything, but I do think that fed a great deal into what he saw as Susan's sin.

t points at JZ's post and nods

I have absolutely no horse in this race, but this:

Well, not to re-open another patented Buffista neverending argument, but...ah, what the hell.

May just be the ultimate Buffista sentence.

I thought Susan was punished because she liked cilantro.

And yes, this comes from a girl who was OMGWTFBBQ obsessed with fantasy forever.

And I'm on the other side - I love Tolkien to pieces but find most other fantasy writers dull as dishwater (yes, sorry, including CS Lewis). I've tried rereading other fantasy novels I enjoyed as a child and teenager, and Tolkien's the only one I can still enjoy.

Hooray for being unlaid off! And for good phone interviews!

Lavender jelly

I know I read the Narnia books, but I don't remember them at all. Weird.

It's funny you bring up Mere Christianity, megan. Fred Clark, over on his slacktivist blog frequently harps on Lewis for Mere Christianity because of his failure to understand why it might not be as "obvious" to other people as it is to Lewis. Clark much prefers Lewis' A Grief Observed, written after the death of his wife, when Lewis realized "Oh! Holy crap! Grief, suffering, and other kinds of pain and misfortune are real, and can cause doubt, and questioning one's faith, and other things like that!"

KT, I've been having itchy issues too. After countless nights, I realized it was mostly concentrated in high clothes-skin contact zone (waist, sock zone, and shoulders blades). Since doing laundry at laundromat #1 (closer to work), the itching has gone down a LOT. And I wonder, does laundromat #2 (near home) not rinse enough?

Maybe your using too much soap??? Or maybe try an extra rinse cycle? What I'm saying is, the lil bumps might not be bug bites, but skin irritations. Just a theory. YRMV